Huh, I had no idea. Thanks for the info!

substack rabbithole

Sounds expensive

Stereotyped characterizations of black people were then common (with Mickey’s design itself apparently evolved from blackface caricatures used in minstrel shows, down to the gloves).

WOW

All of 4 gen-x usenet users pictured

also, phonics

Giving up on phonics was a horrible idea. I’m not sure whose to blame for that but it clearly was a disaster.

The tools were annoying but the process wasn’t very hard. Unprotected FTPs were pretty common early on and IRC download bots were around before torrenting. Sharing applications like Kazaa, Scour, Limewire, and Napster were super simple. There were fewer roadblocks. I wouldn’t want to explain to someone how to get a private invite, understand the trackers rules, and ensure they do not get VPN leaks.

I can’t even tell you what us Gen Xers did

They watched tv and traded tapes.

Mountain Falcon

RAD

I imagine these will end up as mobile party bars in some sketchy spring break city.

I’m not sure the guy who killed 1000s of black folks in multiple countries should be giving out a lecture like this.

The amount of subterfuge, loopholes, bribery, covert operations, and various chicanery PACs have introduced into US elections is enough to make John Foster Dulles squimish.

Damn, this is a really good idea.

Reminds me of when I donated to Bernie Sanders in 2016. You donate to one politician and they all show up asking for favors and leaving shit at your door.

The AIM protocal (oscar???) was spun off around 2000 and could be used outside of AOL with the AIM client or a 3rd party utility.

Removed by mod

This response is fucking classic:

I’m an anarchist, tankies don’t like me because I like my freedom of speech and right to bear arms, not a kid tho

I think that’s probably it. He seems to be pushing the idea that AGI is just around the corner. It smells of self-promotion over good science.

Hinton gives off grifter vibes. I can’t put my finger on it but I don’t trust him.

I looked through the albums and listened to some of the ones I didn’t hear from bands I find ok to very good. I didn’t listen to the LatAm artists. I’m unfamiliar with those artists normal work.

Key Takeaways:

• Nirvana was the best of the lot.
• The hiphop was really badly executed in this format overall with the exception of Lauren Hill. Still prefer the album versions of songs.
• Maxwell’s cover of NIN’s closer is odd. NIN music is closer to funk than most people realize but he chose to cover a track that is not funky at all. Daring move.
• MTV should have targetted indie bands instead of the washed up corporate rock bands they padded the episodes with.
• MTV Unplugged is very plugged. Every band/artist used at least one or all of electric bass, digital reverb, or backing tracks. This is the nature of live sound. These things are never purely acoustic.
• How you gonna do an acoustic “Can I kick it?” without an upright bass??? That would have sounded great. At least it was acoustic.
• The Police suck. Eric Clapton is boring as a solo artist. Fuck Kiss.
• Rod Stewart should have done “Do ya think I’m sexy”. Boring.
• Korn…was…ok? Amy Lee has a wonderful voice. No Auto-tune warble on her vox*. I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to Korn but I would not be annoyed by this album if it was on.

I would say for the most part the “plugged” in versions are better but there are a few surprises.

• I heard light auto-tune on some of the post 03 stuff. They actually used the rack auto-tune at first and you can sort of tell with light warble on the higher frequencies being more apparent. It was a common limitation in the early hardware. I though I heard some in the Florence and the Machines set too but I could be wrong.

Every band/artist’s song that was covered is better than Nirvana lol.